


Kings Never Die

by le_chat_vilain



Series: The Joker and the Thief [32]
Category: Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Angst, Feels, Time Jump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 10:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6048469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/le_chat_vilain/pseuds/le_chat_vilain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaire looks back on the time she’s spent working with Ra’s as they prepare to part ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kings Never Die

**Author's Note:**

> Holy hell, no trigger warnings! Those of you who are familiar with DC will know by now where this is going, I’m sure of it, but I want to take you on that journey with Blaire, fill you in on how her life has been going, and you know…who knows, maybe leave some room for…what are those things called again…begins with an s…sequins? No that’s not it…hmm…it’ll come to me eventually…

One hundred and twenty-three years, four months, and six days it’s been since that night in the cemetery, and still I don’t look a day over twenty-five.

I’ve seen them all fall: the Bat, Nightwing, Penguin, Riddler, even the Sirens. There was always a young upstart there to take their place, but Ra’s and I made sure it was nipped in the bud until finally there were no more masks in Gotham. Or anywhere else for that matter. In fact, I took care of a lot of them myself. Much to my chagrin I was the one who had to put Red down at the end of the day too; nothing personal, just business. Harley never knew it was me, not for sure, but I think she had an inkling.

That crazy bitch outlived them all. She was eighty-nine years old when she finally kicked the bucket. Cancer’s a real dick, that’s one truth that remains universal. I actually sat by her side until the very end, and even though I offered to end her suffering so many times she refused me at every turn.

“Naw, kid, I don’t want you with that on ya conscience,” she told me. “I know ya still feel responsible for Mistah J, even after all these years.”

She was right. I did still feel responsible. I tried to tell her it wouldn’t be a burden on my guilt, that at her age and given her condition it would be a kindness in my mind, but she wouldn’t have it.

“Gosh, kid, look at you. Eighty-five never looked so good. Don’t waste that immortality a yours now, ya hear? Don’t waste it.”

Those were the last words she ever said, a smile on her face that spread all the way into those clear blue eyes.

And like that I was the lone survivor of that golden age of crime. I won.

Ra’s wasn’t lying to me, he meant partnership and he delivered – and in case you’re wondering, no, not in that sense. He’s become the father that I never really had, guiding me, encouraging me, challenging me to be more, do more, want more.

And when it’s late at night, when the halls of Nanda Parbat are silent with the exception of the cracking torches on their walls, he hears me, still shedding tears over love long lost. Still swathed in that old leather coat, pretending it’s more than what it is, that it’s really those arms around me again. He hears me and he finds me. He puts a sword in my hand without a word, taps it with his own, and helps me fight through the pain that still, after lifetimes on this earth, hasn’t abated one bit.

I’ve been by his side for over a century, and it’s there that I’ve found stability and purpose that I never dreamed I’d have.

He gave me a new name, Alkhalid, meaning The Immortal, but he will still use my old one from time to time. He knows I could never truly delete Blaire from my mind, and he doesn’t expect me to.

Together we’ve seen to the systematic destruction of every level of government the world had built, we’ve raised the planet to the ground and built it back up to be far greater than it was ever going to be without us. We bought about the apocalypse, four horsemen style, just like Jay told me he’d once do for me.

We started with some not so natural disasters. Operating as my own free agent without any known affiliation to the League left me able to enlist the help of my connections to ensure we could trigger all kinds of phenomena, from landslides to tsunamis, to super storms and blizzards the likes of nothing the world had ever seen. It was slow at first, it had to be, that way they couldn’t work out there was a pattern. Climate Change was the perfect scapegoat. Ra’s worked out the best places to cause the events and I made sure they happened. Strategically, over time, we wiped out keystone species like honey bees, and decimated the food bowls of the world until the first stage of the plan was in effect: famine.

At first I wasn’t keen on the stealth approach, but eventually I came to love watching them all squabble over basic resources; who knew food could send people into such a state of savage chaos? Never mind a war over oil, they were now at each other’s throats for clean fucking drinking water. It’s amazing what the human race will fight about when they’re backed into a corner. And thus came about phase two: war.

All of the fighting and the hunger then made for the perfect opportunity to implement the third step: pestilence. Well, I suppose it wasn’t so much pestilence as a virus we engineered in a lab, but you get the picture. It targets particular genes in people and eliminate them in order to strengthen the species, physically, intellectually, even emotionally. If they’ve got the right genes, then the virus lays dormant, they get to live on. If they don’t? Well, it’s a slow, gruesome, messy death. Lots of people chose to just end it, jump off a building or something. It never worked though, my blood is in that virus, and once you’ve got it, once it activates, you have to wait for it to expire. Unless you can find someone to lop your head off, you have to suffer through the agony. It’s a beautiful beastie, two parts science to one part mysticism.

Once we’d separated the men from the boys so to speak, that’s when we show ourselves. We’ve ensured Nanda Parbat has been spared from the environmental devastation the rest of the world has been subjected to, and we approach them with open arms full of food they all thought long lost, fresh drinking water in supply enough to quench the thirst of the entire world, and a new plan for a global government initiative.

We created the sickness, and now we were selling them the cure. The oldest trick in the book.

The planet has now entered an unprecedented era of prosperity and peace, and it was all thanks to our guiding hand. Now it was time to see to it that it stayed that way.

Now it was time for me to go home.

Ra’s has agreed to let me oversee the United States from Gotham, as we figure if any nation is going to start shit it’ll be the yanks. I think he can see that I’m finally tired. That I’ve been gone too long and it’s taking its toll on me.

The Gotham I return to doesn’t look all that different from the air. I made sure that I’d have a home to come back to and had it spared from any truly catastrophic events. It wasn’t spared the disease or the famine of course, or the fighting, but it was protected in a way all the same. It’s the one favour I’ve ever asked of Ra’s in all of our long years as colleagues.

We stand side by side on the roof of City Hall, gazing out over her streets with their brilliant twinkling lights and peaceful ambience.

“And so the time has come that we finally part ways, Alkhalid,” he remarks, still staring out into the night. “You have truly surpassed my every expectation. This world would not have been possible without you.”

“Don’t rob yourself of all the credit, Ra’s. You know just as well as I do this was your vision, not mine,” I tell him.

“And yet, it would not have been realised without your help.” This time he turns to me with a warm smile. “Blaire, you may not be blood of my blood, but you are still a daughter to me. I have more pride in you than I have any of my children, or any member of the league. Not once have you failed me. Not once have you refused a challenge, and you have even had the steel to issue me challenges of your own. You are strong beyond what I feel you know, and I am in constant awe of that strength. I knew I was not wrong about you.”

He never talks openly like this. He never verbalizes his pride, though I have never doubted it for a second all the same. This is an uncharacteristically emotional exchange on his part. I shoot him a quizzical smile, and he continues.

“I have been thinking, for many years now, how I could ever show you exactly the depth of my gratitude, the depth of that pride and the love I have for you, child. It took far longer than I would admit, especially once I realized its simplicity, but I have finally found a way to do exactly that,” he informs me, an uncharacteristic smirk on his lips.

“Ra’s, that’s completely unnecessary, really. You’ve given me Gotham, that’s more than enough, and I have never doubted your gratitude, pride, or love. Not for a very long time,” I protest, and he ignores me.

“Now, you are aware that the pit is strictly reserved for my use, of course…” he begins, and I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up, an electric shiver running over my entire body. “However, being The Demon’s Head has its perks, and it is at my discretion as to how I use the pit…”

That’s when I smell it. It’s been decades since I last did but I’d recognize it anywhere.

Leather. Silver. Gunpowder. Cigarettes.

I can hear footsteps approaching from behind me in a familiar rhythm I could never forget.

Ra’s beams at me, a truly happy smile as he sees my eyes widen with the realization of what he’s done for me. For us.

“My gift to you, daughter, is as we gave this world: a second chance. Do not waste it.” His eyes flit behind me and he nods before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

My heart is racing and I can feel my body trembling, barely able to contain the swirling vortex of emotions I’m feeling right now.

“You know, I always thought you’d come back for these, but maybe you’re getting forgetful in your old age…”

I hear his voice for the first time in one hundred and thirty-three years, four months, and six days.

I take a deep breath, and turn around to face him, tears streaming down my cheeks. He’s standing there with that wicked grin on his lips, and my lucky Chucks dangling from his finger, still looking every bit as quintessentially Jay as the day I lost him.

“Hey, baby, miss me?”


End file.
